


The Winning Hand

by SailorSol



Category: seaQuest
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-08
Updated: 2010-12-08
Packaged: 2017-10-13 14:09:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/138222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SailorSol/pseuds/SailorSol
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marilyn Stark looks forward to the day when Nathan Bridger realizes the student surpassed the teacher, using the very things he taught her. Just a hint of romance and a hefty dose of crazy on Stark's part. Season 1 and before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Winning Hand

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little something that I wrote a while back. It was originally intended to be story notes for something longer, but morphed itself into being a little one-shot instead.

The irony was brilliant, of course; serving with the son of the man who had been her idol, her role model, and later her mentor. Using the skills _he_ had inspired in her against him. It had all seemed so perfectly laid out in the beginning. She had been two years ahead of Robert Bridger at the Naval Academy, had tutored him in physics when he struggled through the laws of motion and simple circuitry. It was like looking at what the great Nathan Bridger had been twenty years ago, like watching a flower bloom in stop-motion, and she was part of that.

She loved him, and she loved the _idea_ of him. The son of the great naval hero and his protege, together. Like something out of a movie. But things weren't headed towards happily ever after, and she wouldn't take second place. Not ever. _He_ had taught her that, and _he_ had taught her to take any advantage she could get, to play her hand close, to not let others know her cards too soon. And _he_ had taught her about seizing opportunity when it knocked.

Perhaps that had been the beginning of the end. Dear Robert, sweet and lovable Robert, had rejected her, and she wouldn't, _couldn't_ take no for an answer. It had been luck or chance or fate that had caused their boat to start sinking, had caused Robert to hurt himself. It had been the perfect opportunity, and it had been _so easy_ to lie about what happened, because they would never be able to recover any bodies from the doomed submarine, and no one would doubt her word when she told them that Robert Bridger was dead, that he had died trying to save the rest of them, oh so noble and brave.

She kept him safe, kept him alive and secret, and he didn't remember the truth, didn't even remember his own name, and she was thrilled that he was all hers now, so very trusting that he was. It was a shame that she couldn't spend more time with him, but she had command of the _seaQuest_ now, and things were just so _perfect_ , just like in the movies.

It amused her that Nathan never figured it out, that he was so naive. He trusted her (like father, like son, after all), even up until she betrayed him so very openly, and she laughed because she knew the truth about Nathan's son, and _Nathan never would_ , because her boat was sinking and she knew there was no salvation this time and Robert would never know that his father was still alive, there would never be a happy reunion, and despite everything _she had won._

Someday, she hoped, Nathan would realize just how much Marilyn Stark had learned from him. Someday, he would realize that the student really had surpassed the teacher, and she would already be gone and he wouldn't be able to do anything more than curse her memory.

Yes. She had won.


End file.
